Carson replies

Henry Lawhutt seems rather taken with the way I begin my letters, judging from the way he began his own letter in the last Salient. I must confess that "I am compelled to bring to your attention" is a phrase borrowed from our dear departed "liberal moderate": I too stole that quaint expression.

Mr Lawhutt has stated that I equated the number of people at a meeting with the views of a person speaking to that meeting in my article in Salient 15. This is manifest nonsense, I did no such thing. However, a meeting decided unanimously—that's right unanimously, not even Mr Lawhutt's dulcet tones in dissent—"That this meeting urges Mr Kirk and the Labour Party to rescind the decision to make the Malay National Language a prerequisite for entry into New Zealand universities." I may perhaps be justified in entertaining the suspicion that a significant proportion of those present were more than just a little out of sympathy with the Prime Minister.

Finally, I reported that there was mixed feeling at the meeting about the requirement of Bahasa Malay in Malaysia itself. From this I fail to see how Mr Lawhutt concludes that I, personally am against the teaching of Bahasa Malay in Malaysian schools. I would suggest that Mr Lawhutt re-read my article to see what I really did say and refrain from drawing grossly distorted conclusions from that article.